Museum In ‘t Houten Huis - De Rijp

Welcome!

Welcome to the beautiful museum about the history of De Rijp and surroundings. … the fascinating story about Schermereiland is told. On the Tuingracht in the old city centre you will find Museum In 't Houten Huis. The museum tells the story of Schermereiland (now Eilandspolder) and the origins of De Rijp in words and images. The museum is not too big and more than worth it. In addition to the permanent exhibition there is also a changing exhibition. This is changed at least once a year. We organize a visit to this museum in combination with a visit to the Town Hall of De Rijp anno 1630. There your day starts with coffee, tea and a Leeghwater pastry, watching a film about the area and a short tour of the monumental rooms. The museum and the town hall are only a 5-minute walk from each other. It is also possible to visit Fort Spijkerboor and the Schermerhorn Museum Mill, among other things, with the museum boat 'Maria Lijntje'.

Start tour

Museum In 't Houten Huis is a historical museum that highlights the history of the North Holland village De Rijp and Schermereiland. The museum is located in the former orphanage on the Tuingracht and still has an original wooden construction. In addition, the former town hall of Graft is also managed by the museum. Collection The Great Fire in De Rijp of 1654, painted in 1662 by Egbert van der Poel. Important themes in the collection are shipping (especially whaling and herring fishing), the millwright and hydraulic engineer Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater, born in De Rijp, Mennonites, hemp processing and the daily life of the villagers. Among the museum's highlights are a kayak from West Greenland and the painting The Great Fire in De Rijp of 1654 by Egbert van der Poel.

Exhibition Els Hansen - Rijper Portraits

In 1989, the book Rijper Portretten by Els Hansen was published with her photo portraits of residents of De Rijp. In 2023, she donated more than 100 enlargements and more than 500 negatives made in the same period, largely not yet printed, to Museum In 't Houten Huis. This donation was the reason to put together an exhibition of portraits from the book as well as previously unpublished photographs from that period. The photo portraits show Rijpers in their daily environment, but together they also form an image of the village society of that time. On view until 27-10-2024

Video hemp processing

Video exhibition From rag and doll

Exhibition of Samplers and dolls from the collections of museums and private individuals. The exhibition OF LAP AND POP in museum In 't Houten Huis in De Rijp Noord-Holland was on display until 25 March 2012.

Audio tour 1: the clock

Standing clock

Standing clock, oak and bottom veneered case with two claw feet and three statues on an attachment. Equipped with date indication, moon phases and a beautiful sounding carillon. The clockwork is original in composition. The dial shows the name of the maker: 'Hendrik van Voorst / In de Rijp'. The clockmaker Van Voorst settled in De Rijp in 1719. Minor damage to the marquetry. The collection of Museum In 't Houten Huis also includes a wall clock and a pocket watch (only the clockwork), which were made by Hendrik van Voorst.

Garden Canal De Rijp

Audio tour 3: herring buss

Audio tour stop 2: atlases

Model line walkway

This model of a ropewalk was made by Cees Eijking. There are two parts: making strings and making hawsers. The processing of hemp for the manufacture of sails, rope, nets and yarns was an important activity on Schermereiland. There were also various rope lanes, sailcloth weaving mills and net lanes. The thin cloth from De Rijp was well-known. Hemp was also used to make the seams between the planks of wooden ships waterproof: the caulking or caulk of ships. Mechanization and the introduction of tropical and later synthetic fibers put an end to hemp processing on Schermereiland.

Audio tour 15: Spaarman

Audio tour 4: kayak

Audio tour 5: whaling

Audio tour 6: Jan Janszn Weltevree

Audio tour 7: the shipowners' room

Audio tour: Welcome - The Baltic Sea

Audio tour 10: model

Audio tour 20: fire

Audio tour 19: Leeghwater (person)

Audio tour 18: Leeghwater

Audio tour 14: rocking cradle

Audio tour 13: bridal box

Audio tour 16: Mennonites

Audio tour 12: pottery

Audio tour 9: Blaeu

Audio tour 17: industry

Audio tour 11: wooden houses

Willem Jansz Blaeu

Willem Jansz. Blaeu (Uitgeest or Alkmaar, 1571 – Amsterdam, 1638) was a Dutch cartographer and globe maker. He only started using the name Blaeu (in Latin: Caesius) more or less officially after 1620. In 1633 he was appointed as a mapmaker for the VOC and as an examiner of the VOC pilots. In 1637 the company was moved to the Bloemgracht. He did not work there for long because he died a year later and on 21 October 1638 he was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk. His company was continued by his sons Joan and Cornelis.

The herring buss

The herring buss is a well-known type of ship that was developed in the Middle Ages. The ship model was used both as a fishing boat at sea and for merchant shipping. What exactly is a herring buss? Originated in the Middle Ages A herring bust – Master W with the Key, ca. 1490 (Rijksmuseum) The herring buss is, besides the cog and the caravel, a well-known seaworthy ship type from the Middle Ages. The ship was developed in the early fifteenth century. According to historians, the first herring buss ships were launched in Enkhuizen in 1416. The name of the ship is derived from the Latin buscia, which means 'cargo ship'. Terms used for the herring buss were buyse, buse or buyssescip. The first time a herring buss appeared in a drawing must have been around 1490. In 2014, the Rijksmuseum acquired the oldest known print of a herring buss, dating from around 1980. Around that time, there were around 400 herring buss sailing in Flanders and Holland. Characteristics of the herring buss The herring buss was a wide and large keel ship, with a lot of loading space. Fishermen used this type of ship to catch herring. In contrast to other medieval ship types, herring buss did not have flat beams, but were 'built on a keel'. A heavy beam shape, the keel, ran across the entire bottom.

Herring fishing

Between about 1550 and 1700, the Dutch herring fishery was so prominent in Europe that foreign competition did everything it could to nip the national successes in the bud. Even when the 'Golden Age of Fishing' had come to an end here, Dutch fishing methods remained the great example for at least another 150 years. This is the conclusion of Danish historian Bo Poulsen of the Institut for Kultur og Globale Studier at the University of Aalborg.

Jan Janszn. Weltevree (1595-1657)

"I was born in 1595 in De Rijp. In 1626 I signed on to the “Hollandia” and left for the Indies on March 17 of that year. From Djakarta I went with the yacht “Ouwerkerck” in 1627 to Decima (now Dejima), near Nagasaki in Japan. On the way we had to deal with a lot of headwind, which made the journey take much longer than expected. As a result, we ran out of drinking water. I went ashore with two mates to get a few barrels of water. The other two were Dirck Gijsbertsz (also from De Rijp) and Jan Pieterse Verbaest from Amsterdam. The island turned out to be Jeju (formerly Chesu) in the far south of Korea, about 90 km from the mainland. We were captured there, after which the Ouwerkerck quickly left. Partly in response to invasions by Japan and Manchuria, Korea under King Jungjong (1506-1544) and later kings pursued a strongly isolationist policy. When I arrived in Korea, King Injo (1623-1649) was in power, succeeded by King Hyojong (1649-1659). Under very strict rules, trade still took place, but otherwise it was a hermit kingdom. If someone accidentally entered the country, he was not killed, but was never allowed to leave the country again. My friends and I also experienced the consequences of this policy. We were taken to Seoul. So I - as the very first Westerner to come to Korea - lived there for the rest of my life. Because I knew about weapons and gunpowder, among other things, I became an advisor at the king's court. I married a Korean woman, we had children, and I took a Korean name: Pak Yon. Both my mates were killed in a war against the Manchus."

Jan Boon Junior (1758-1847)

Jan Boon was the last descendant of the Mennonite Boon family, which belonged to one of the most important shipping and merchant families in De Rijp. As Rijper notables, about ten of these families exerted a great influence on all areas of social life through their economic dominance, making the working class and middle class very dependent on them. Some other names in this connection are those of the Bek and Beets families.

Eagle broker

Estate agent of the property Rechtestraat 78, De Rijp, in the shape of an eagle. Called a Dodo (extinct bird species) by former resident Cornelis de Jong. This ornament was replaced by a new one due to serious water ingress. This eagle is painted dark brown. The broker as a structural component was originally the beam on which the end of the ridge beam rested. Later it became the decorated vertical plank between the wind feathers and the water boards of the roof of a wooden house. The name broker is therefore not used entirely correctly in the case of the eagle. The current eagle was recently restored and returned to its place in mid-2024.

The Baltic Sea

The Eilandspolder is a surprisingly well-preserved medieval cultural landscape with high natural values and beautiful villages with a historical character. It is wedged between the large Schermer and Beemster polders and was formerly known as Schermereiland; remnants of a large peat extraction area surrounded by water. That water was the large lakes; Schermeer, Beemstermeer and Starnmeer. Farmers and fishermen lived there and later also workers, sailors and ship owners. But the polder was not always an island. Once it was part of the immense peat area that lay across the western and northern Netherlands; large peat cushions like hills with drainage streams in between. One big swamp, that is what the landscape of the Eilandspolder looked like around the beginning of the era. Only further to the west was there solid ground, there were the dunes and the geest grounds. In that dune area lived the early inhabitants of the western Netherlands, in the Kennemerland. From these higher grounds the inhabitants could go into the marshes with canoes via the peat streams, among other things to fish. Then, about a thousand to twelve hundred years ago, they also began to exploit parts of the marsh. They learned how to drain the peat and turn it into agricultural land by digging ditches. A first settlement along the Schermer, then still a peat stream that flowed into the sea, had already been founded around 920: the Scirmere. The village of Graft is mentioned in the archives from 1050, although at that time in a different location than now.

Pricking sled

Sled or counter with painting, consisting of four winter landscapes painted by Willem Spaarman (1848-1917). The inside is painted red. The sled was made in 1884 by order of the Rijper tree nurseryman Klaas Admiraal and his wife Maartje Blaauw for their children Maarten and Trijntje. The counter is described by Leo den Engelse, 'A painted sledge for the new museum' in: Een Nieuwe Chronyke - Published by the Archaeological Society Graft - De Rijp, 17 (2000) no. 1, pp. 32-37. The following descriptions of the four images are taken from it: - polder mill De Knevelaar on the eastern dike of the Eilandspolder - carousel at the end of a ropeway. Almost certainly ropeway De Vrede in the Noordeinde of Graft - koek-en-zopie at Grootschermer. At least according to Maarten Admiraal (around 1970). It could even be better at the then still existing Grafter church, because there is wide water and also buildings between that water and the church. - the tar house of the De Poel ropewalk on the border of Graft and De Rijp. A bench on the bottom. The top is removable so that it can be turned into a sled. Parts: sled, two sides, front, bench and back with push bar. Two matching sleds (b+c) of which c. is probably broken and attached to each other with a rope.